"/O Ciel/! how droll! No! that handsome man is no less a person than
the Duc d'Orleans. You see a little ugly thing like an anatomized
ape,--there, see,--he has just thrown down a chair, and, in stooping to
pick it up, has almost fallen over the Dutch ambassadress,--that is
Louis Armand, Prince of Conti. Do you know what the Duc d'Orleans said
to him the other day? '/Mon bon ami/,' he said, pointing to the
prince's limbs (did you ever see such limbs out of a menagerie, by the
by?) '/mon bon ami/, it is a fine thing for you that the Psalmist has
assured us "that the Lord delighteth not in any man's legs."' Nay,
don't laugh, it is quite true!"

It was now for Count Hamilton to take up the ball of satire; he was not
a whit more merciful than the kind Madame de Cornuel. "The Prince,"
said he, "has so exquisite an awkwardness that, whenever the King hears
a noise, and inquires the cause, the invariable answer is that 'the
Prince of Conti has just tumbled down'! But, tell me, what do you think
of Madame d'Aumont? She is in the English headdress, and looks /triste
a la mort/."

"She is rather pretty, to my taste."

"Yes," cried Madame de Cornuel, interrupting the gentle Antoine (it did
one's heart good to see how strenuously each of them tried to talk more
scandal than the other), "yes, she is thought very pretty; but I think
her very like a /fricandeau/,--white, soft, and insipid. She is always
in tears," added the good-natured Cornuel, "after her prayers, both at
morning and evening. I asked why; and she answered, pretty simpleton,
that she was always forced to pray to be made good, and she feared
Heaven would take her at her word! However, she has many worshippers,
and they call her the evening star."